Happy Thanksgiving!!!

There are many things that the Degan's are thankful for this year - visits from family, friends returning to the Crystal Coast, and good hunting - but Porter tops the list. Our son wows us everyday, and it's hard to believe that his little ticker needs fixin.' We are thankful for his strength and smiles, his gigantic poops and frequent pees, his normal weight gain and the way he smiles at Maple. We are also very thankful to his doctor's, Dr. Hannon and Dr. Sang, and all the nurses at Pitt Memorial. Here are a few pictures from the past month, and a video of a boy and his dog.

Could I be any cuter?

Loving the octopus in the Bumpo

Big smiles

Too bad I can't eat the candy!

Nana's sweater

Playing with Maple

Sitting on the couch like a big boy

Hating belly time

A boy and his dog

On November 16 Porter had another heart catheterization at Pitt. Dr. Sang wanted to get a closer look at how his heart works by injecting a contrast dye and taking an x-ray. He also wanted to measure the pressure inside the heart. It was thought that the pressure was high due to his defect, but it was discovered that it was normal! This bodes well for delaying the surgery a bit longer. We'll know more after the Thanksgiving holiday. Porter did great, by the way. He was put under around 9am and awake again by 11:30am. We had to stick around at the hospital for a few hours to make sure there were no complications; none arose and we were home by 9pm that night.

The night before the procedure at the Ronald McDonald house

Playing with Froggie, waiting for the anesthesiologists

Singing Jack was Every Inch a Sailor in recovery.

First successful hunt of the year for Maple and Brian...These three wood ducks made up the center piece of our Thanksgiving feast!


Roasted duck, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and rutabaga, stuffing, Watergate salad and sweet potato pie.


---Jacqui